Digital Signage Made Easy – Four Winds Interactive Breezes Across Campus

Syracuse, NY., March 2007 – Students who pass through the atrium in the Heroy Geology building can check out the local weather forecast, get the latest headlines from CNN, and view fascinating images of the earth’s natural, geological processes taken by SU faculty members whose expeditions take them from the depths of the ocean floor to mountain glaciers.

The large, digital screen upon which all of this information is displayed is part of a multidisciplinary, digital-signage pilot project coordinated by Roger Merrill, director of IT Services in the School of Information Studies. The goal of the project is to identify and recommend a common digital-signage platform for use campus-wide to both save on licensing costs and to facilitate content sharing where applicable. The group is piloting Four Winds Interactive digital-signage software.

“The software allows us to carve the screen into multiple areas so that we can display different kinds of content at once,” says Michael Cheatham, senior research specialist in the Department of Earth Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences. “In addition, you can create content in any format—PowerPoint, Flash, video clips, images, HTML, Word documents— and feed it directly into the system.”

Cheatham and Stuart Rotblat, computer consultant in the Division of Student Affairs, say that Four Winds, which is a Windows-based software tool, essentially works as a content-management system that makes it easy for content providers to upload information to a digital screen. Cheatham’s preference is to create much of his content on a Macintosh, transfer it to a Dell, and upload the content into the Four Winds platform. He then clicks a few buttons to add an RSS feed and a feed for the Syracuse weather—and it’s done.

Rotblat says the Division of Student Affairs plans to deploy Four Winds on digital screens in the Schine and Goldstein student centers and at the Tennity Ice pavilion. Plans are also underway to deploy Four Winds to digital screens in the School of Information Studies and in Newhouse III, after the building is completed. A licensing agreement with Four Winds includes a provision for an automatic site license if 10 University departments purchase licenses within the next five years, Merrill says. Those interested in more information about the system can e-mail Merrill.